Chip Reese’s only son, Casey, died Monday from what is reported to be an accidental prescription-medication overdose. This is just over 16 months after Chip’s passing.

I can’t imagine the grief the Reese family is feeling. I had to deal with the death of my father in November after his 16-month battle with brain cancer came to an end. His death was something my family and I knew was very likely to happen. Despite knowing it was coming, it still was very and at times still is very hard to deal with the lose of my father when he was only 60-years old. The fact that this family has had two sudden and unexpected deaths has to be extremely difficult.

This is just a reminder that things can change instantly in life and you have to take advantage of the time you have. I hope all of you are able to do that. – Schmelzer

I’m currently watching the 25k head-op PLO tourney on Full Tilt. I noticed a very interesting second round match-up of Brian Hastings and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. I noticed that Phil had lost connection and was very impressed when Brian did the right thing by letting time run all the down and then raising to take the pot. He easily could’ve been raising as fast as he could and whittled Phil down to nothing while he was disconnected. Phil was very thankful for it and said he would have done the same. It’s nice to see two one stars show some class.

Hastings also showed he understands responsibility. He is a pro for the site and also is a member of Cardrunners. It would look bad to have someone representing a couple of well known sites getting as many chips as possible while someone was unable to defend their chips. Way to be a good representative of the game Brian.

Brian “SBrugby” Townsend has admitted to multi-accounting on both Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars in recent months. In his blog, he admitted to this and said he has lost his red pro status on Full Tilt for six months for his actions. Click here for his blog.

Townsend is known for playing the highest stakes in online cash games after grinding his way from .25/.50 nl. He is one of the key members of Cardrunners. In the summer of 2007, he played high stakes in Las Vegas, which involved several million dollar swings.

I’m a little late on this topic, but some people feel that the way Scotty Nguyen’s behavior at the 50k HORSE final table was bad for poker. I’m not so convinced about that.

He clearly was out of line with his antics and deserved penalties for his behavior. I have heard that Scotty came out and said that he wasn’t drunk. I have no idea how that is possible. In fact, if I were him, I would say I was very drunk because then there is a reason to act that way. I don’t travel the tournament circuit, so I have never seen Scotty in person. His TV appearance has always come off as a nice guy. This appearance clearly is crumpled up and thrown in the garbage after the HORSE table.

I don’t think this was really bad for poker, though. People already playing poker are going to keep watching poker shows and keep playing the game. This added entertainment to poker for people that aren’t big poker fans. I had heard about the drunkenness and was looking forward to seeing what exactly happened. While this isn’t the kind of attention poker wants, it will get viewers, which certainly is not bad for the game.

The one thing that Scotty’s acts did tarnish a little was the celebration of deceased Chip Reese. The night was slightly intended to honor the poker great. The barrage of swearing put a cloud over that a little bit.

Scotty will have some work to do in order to get the image he had by the fans back. I don’t think his actions will help poker a whole lot, but it did add some entertainment that isn’t always there. I don’t think this was bad for poker. That being said, this can’t be a normal occurrence. That would be terrible for the game by giving it an image of drunks. As an isolated incident, it’s fine. People get drunk. That is not a secret.

Roughly 10 days before the start of the WSOP this summer, Gary and I were talking and he asked me if I would be interested working with PokerNews to do chip updates for them. It’s something that I really wanted to do and I knew I would enjoy the time I’d be working. It also would have given me the opportunity to make some connections in the industry incase I decide to dabble in it after I graduate.

I got in contact with Garry Gates, who did some work for this site in the past, and we discussed how everything would work. It was short notice, but things could have worked out with just a little planning (living arrangements, transportation to and from the Rio, etc.).

One thing made me think declining the offer might be the best thing though. If you follow my blog (sadly my entries have been scarce lately), you might remember that last summer my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer. His tumor started growing again this spring and was successfully operated on again. The fact that I never knew what would happen and when led me to decide it was best that I don’t move across the country for a month and a half.

This ended up being the right choice. On what I think was day two of the Series, we found out that my dad’s tumor once again had started growing and had moved into a new location. To make matters worse, the area it moved to is inoperable.

He just started a new study program on Tuesday. He has to get an IV every Tuesday and take a pill everyday. Like everything involving brain cancer, this is in the experimental stage and has no guarantees. All we can do is pray and hope this is the answer.

I hadn’t been playing much poker this summer till a week or two ago. Things were going just OK. However, I recently picked up limit Omaha hi/lo and it has been going well for me. I have always liked the game a lot, but I always felt I had a better edge in NL hold’em. I have only had one losing session in Omaha in roughly 5 sessions. My loss was kind of sick. I had tripled my buy-in and ended up a loser. I wasn’t too happy with that. I played earlier today and lost my first buy-in and ended up fighting back and ended up a buy-in.

All I have for now. If any of you played in any WSOP events, I hope they went well. If you are playing tomorrow in the Main Event, best of luck to you!

Well, I am officially done with my junior year in college. I am excited and scared about only having one more year left. I am not a big fan of school, but not knowing what my life will be like in a year is a little terrifying.

With exams recently, I haven’t had much time to get any poker in. It’s been bad as of late when I can find the time to play. It seems like I have been suffering a lot of variance most of this school year. I went on a huge heater last summer; I hope I can do that again this year.

It looks the the tournament back home is having a hard time getting people to play. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cancel it. None the less, I am sure there will be some cash games this summer. Hopefully I can rake in some dough from those.

I have relieved I like playing live a lot more than online. I just have a feel in a live game that I believe gives me an edge.

The good news is that the people the run tourneys in the Green Bay area have started one in my hometown. Even better news is everyone that plays there except my friends are absolutely terrible. Now for the bad news, I have bubbled both times I have played in it.

They have a point system and I’m doing OK in that since I’ve been deep both times. If I do well enough in the points I get an entry into a tournament for some free trips like money to buy in to a WSOP event. However, this weekend is probably going to be my last week playing in it before that time, so I need to win. The winners each week are invited to the special tourney also. We’ll see how it goes; after bubbling twice I feel kind of sick about it.

The nice thing is I’ve easily made those buy-ins back online in the last few days. I discovered heads-up cash games and it has been ultra juicy for me. One session I was down over two buy-ins and managed to come back and be a small winner. It has been a little crazy at times. In that particular game my opponent was holding over me for the first 80 or so hands and it was just sick. I knew I was the better player though so I stuck in and grinded my way back. The really strange thing is that everyone comes in firing at me, but after 80 hands they are playing really passive. Maybe I just make them change their style.

I hope all of you running bad can find your niche to help get you off the slide. GL everyone.

As you might already know, Phil Ivey won this year’s WPT L.A. Poker Classic Main Event. I also might have known that he set the record for most WPT final tables with that win with eight. Did you know that he did so in eight cashes? That’s right, he has final tabled every WPT he has cashed in.

This is absolutely a remarkable feat. It took him eight times to finally pull it out, but this might show that when Ivey is determined, he gets the job done. Yes, he has blown some early and mid-tournament leads. Did he want to win those tournaments as bad as he did the LAPC. I wouldn’t doubt it. But the first place prize, while still lucrative for him, he could make in a good week in the cash games he plays in. Hell, he could make that much money in a good 24-hour session probably. Because of this, it has to be hard for him to be 100% focused during the entire tournament. But, when he hits that money, he is in for the long hall and nothing will get in his way.

Another amazing accomplishment was done by one Chris “Jesus” Ferguson. The NBC National Heads-up Championship is an event the most of the pros love. Despite people complaining about the fast structure to it, the winner is always given a lot of credit. He finished second in the tournaments inaugural year to Phil Hellmuth. The next year, he finished runner-up for again; this time to Ted Forrest. This was the fourth year of the event and once again made it to the best of three format finals. He lost the first match to Andy Bloch. It looked like he might finish second for the third time in four years. He managed to fight back and win the next two matches and the event, however.

No matter how much luck it takes to win the event with its less than perfect blinds, his dominance of that event shows that he has a ton of skill heads-up. A little luck doesn’t hurt either. When he won the 2000 WSOP Main Event, he got all-in for all the marbles with A-9 against T.J. Cloutier’s A-Q. A river 9 gave Ferguson the championship. Don’t get me wrong, I think Chris is very good and has proven it with this tournament. Don’t let my luck tangent lead you to think otherwise.

I will almost guarantee that Ivey will win another WPT before he is down. Considering the fact that he said in an interview lately that he will always play poker, that probably isn’t a brave prediction considering this man’s skills. I’m sure you will also see Ferguson do well in the heads-up. Keep your eyes on these two.

Before I get into my thoughts, let me just say that if you have nothing to do tonight and are a true poker fan check out the live updates of the LAPC tonight. None other than Phil Ivey is in first place. Phil Hellmuth is in third and Nam Le has some work to do in sixth. This could and should be an amazing final table.

Poker has been going better lately. I’ve been slowly building my roll back up, but it’s still not where it was when things were going well for me in summer. I would love to find more time to play but I have been pretty busy this semester. I think it’s helping me actually as I am only playing when I truly want to play. But, this is the reason I am going crazy.

I have tons of small assignments to do this semester and I’ll be amazed if I don’t blank on one of them. I haven’t had this problem yet, but I’ll have a deer in the headlights look on my face if it does happen.

I want to be done with college more than ever right now. Since my first very first semester of college, I haven’t been a fan of it. Classes have always seemed dumb for me. A lot of the stuff I learn in my journalism classes, I could easily learn form editors telling me what they like and don’t like about articles I write for them. It frustrates me a little. The good thing is that I only have 2 ½ semesters to go and my next two will consist of mostly journalism classes.

Hopefully things calm down and I can handle my workload and work in just a little more poker. I’m sure some of you read that and think I have it easy and wish you only had it as easy as me. It’s not as much that I can’t do it as I just don’t want to do it. If I had a decent job offer right now I would take it in a heartbeat and say goodbye to college. This of course won’t happen though.

Well, I think that is enough ranting for today. Try to stay sane, everyone.

With the recent Roger Clemens’ hearings I have realized that it is always best to admit your wrongdoing and move on. I’m basically saying I don’t believe him at all and I don’t think I have any reason to. But this theory is shown in poker.

Look at Justin “Zeejustin” Bonomo. He was a kid that was busted for multi-accounting and was originally frowned on. He apologized and admitted he was wrong and it appears he stopped doing it. Now he has been accepted into the poker community and considered as one of the best young players by many.

Now look at newly 18-year-old Josh “JJProdigy” Fields. He was busted several times for the same offense. He really showed no remorse for what he was doing till recently. He released an apology shortly before the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure on a forum. He was just turning 18 before the event and planed on playing in it. Some felt this was his attempt to clear himself before the event. Shaun Deeb, mostly known for his online play, wrote to PokerStars requesting that they wouldn’t allow Fields in their live event.

PokerStars took Deeb’s advice. They decided that since they have banned him from their site because of his cheating in the past, the ban would carry over to their live events.

Now, the right thing to do is obviously don’t cheat. However, where there is money, there will be cheating. If you are one of these thieves that will do whatever you can just for the almighty dollar and get caught, just admit you did something wrong and STOP doing it. Better yet, STOP doing it right now BEFORE you get caught. People will praise you for it.